Hey guys, and welcome to episode 118 of Maple to Maple.
It's passion in Perth. That's right.
I am going to be talking with a friend of mine from Perth,
Australia. This is an exciting episode.
I'm so happy to have you joining me.
As always, I remain PJ. You know, we had a conversation
over the weekend about why I remain PJ.
We were in Nashville at a gaming convention and people like, why
do you remain PJ? Did you at one time stop being
PJ? And to be honest with you, I've
always been PJI. Don't know why that happened.
So there you are. There's the story of it today.
That's enough about me. Today we've got my friend Ahmed
from Perth and he's going to talk about the gaming community,
Australia and everything. Ahmed, how are you?
So much fun. On the show it is 906 at night
time, my side opposite of yours and so right.
Slightly sleepy and a bit tired, but.
You know it's all good I. Think it's one of the exciting
things the Oregon community I think these days is the ability
to just connect with much anyone anywhere I despite our industry
being so focused on the physical in person presence.
Right, absolutely. So it is 8 O 6:00 AM here in
central Illinois. So this was a fun logistical
trying to coordinate, but we we got you on this is amazing.
So why don't you let's start. Why don't you just tell me a
little bit about like where you are and how did you get into the
modern board gaming community? Sure.
So I'm currently based in Perth, Australia.
It's a little, you know, less well known part of Australia.
Everybody always thinks about Sydney and Melbourne over the
East Coast, right? Which by the way is at least two
and sometimes 3 hours ahead depending on daylight saving so.
We're a bit. Closer to I guess in that sense,
you know, Southeast Asia and Oceana in terms of regional
proximity. And I started my journey into
this industry at the end of December 2020.
So what happened then was that I was working as a general manager
for a local agency and I was looking after around 17
globally. And it was a very stressful job.
And I have, you know, I had, I still do.
I have young kids, three of them.
And it was a remote job. So it just.
Piles on. You can.
See where it's going? Right.
It basically came to a point where I, I found it too
stressful and but to be honest, it was actually my dream job.
I loved what I was doing. I really enjoyed it, loved the
team a fantastic, you know, set up and everything.
But it's one of those things where you just know it was time
to move on. And I actually took a while to
sort of recover, you know, a bit of self-care, explored some
avenues in terms of what I'm doing next.
But one thing that I knew for sure was that I didn't want to
do something that had me spend time in front of the screen the
whole day. That was the biggest thing,
right? Right.
I think that's a struggle across the planet.
We hear that. We hear that all the time, yeah.
And then there was another thing, which was that I spoke a
lot with my wife. Obviously, as you know, I've
been married to her for a very long time.
I mean, I think for coming to 14, almost 15 years now and.
Hey, congratulations. Thank you.
So today, as of at the time that we're recording, my wife and I
are celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary today.
Congratulations. To you.
I know, so make sure you say a prayer for her because she's got
to put up with me. I, I get what you mean, brother.
And you know, I think one of the things, if you have someone who
you can, you know, confide with and non judgmental, not that was
that it was, it was. So it's a bit of a career
counseling moment. You know, we're discussing like,
hey, you know, what should I be doing next?
You know, based on my skills, what I've done before and all
that. And one thing that sort of
crossed our minds, and it wasn't just for me but for her as well,
is that we sort of wanted to do something that was going to be
long term in terms of the impact.
And don't get me wrong, my wife is a physio.
What she does is amazing in terms of impacting, you know,
the community, the people she is helping to get better and
recover. And of course, even my job in
terms of the corporate sense, benefiting clients and all that.
But we wanted to, I guess see something that was a bit
different that would carry out beyond us in that sense, right?
So, right, another way to say it was that we're sort of thinking
like, OK, what about maybe a bit of legacy building?
And the reason why I use that word is that, you know, I'm now
37. I think you start losing count
after 30 and you're not getting younger.
And so you are having less and less opportunities in that sense
in terms of, you know, your time, your energy, your
interests, you sort of have less to go with in that sense, right?
So we're thinking like, OK, well, why don't we explore
something that is, you know, different in that sense?
And I still didn't really arrive at board games yet at that time.
And then the third part of this was actually considering how I
could do something that could also benefit my kids.
Because one of the things that I realized, and I'm sure a lot of
parents realized this as well, is that it's a challenge of
screen time is not just for us, it's for the kids.
And it's also in terms of how do you engage with your kids as
they grow up, right. And, and of course, as as a kid,
as a as a boy growing up, I played a lot of games like video
games. Right, whatever it is, right,
you, you know what I'm talking. About.
Yeah, absolutely. I grew up.
With my gosh, yeah. StarCraft Brood War, that was
one of my favorite games. Used to play it a lot, even, you
know, StarCraft 2 when it came out and stuff like that and a
lot of RTS's in in general. I've of course played Risk and
like everybody else I also played Monopoly.
You guys might not know, but this it's a very obscure.
Yeah. And for me, I it came with the
realization that we can't really escape from games in that sense.
But you can harness the positive aspect of games, right?
There's the extreme negative aspect of microtransactions and
all the sort of, you know, mobile game rubbish that comes
up with gotcha and stuff like that.
But there's certainly a positive side of it that you can focus
on. And so those three things sort
of coalesced for me to come to say, hey, you know what, this
would be something really interesting.
And you need to go into and bear in mind this is I I wasn't
someone who knew anything about the industry.
I mean, I rediscovered or discovered modern board games a
couple of years before that. I didn't know any designer or
you know, like terminologies. Or like.
Here, you know, of a deck builder and this and that and
how you make a good game and stuff like that.
So I was literally starting at the bottom of the barrel, you
know? Wow.
Yeah. Wow.
OK, That's interesting. I did not realize.
I'm so glad we started with this.
I didn't. I didn't know how recently,
Right. You had come to the modern
gaming hobby. That's incredible.
That's great.
Yes. Tell tell me more.
To give you a bit of context, when I mentioned that, you know,
I discovered modern board games, that was a period of time where
I was buying so many board games.
I think I got my wife to play like I think 80. 80 new board
games in a month. That was like at the peak of it.
She wasn't happy because it just filled.
No one, no one understands what that's like.
You know no one buys too many board games, right?
Exactly. So hey, let me real quick.
What was the first one? What was the first game in the
modern hobby when you got into it a few years ago?
What was the first game that you bought and what was the first
game you played with your wife? I want to say it was probably
land versus Sea by Good Games. Publishing.
Yeah. Yeah.
OK. I'm pretty sure it was something
like that and or King Domino, one of those two like it was
like a pretty. Well known.
Title. I remembered like getting
excited to tell my wife, hey, you know what?
End of the year's sale. Why don't we just buy a few?
Little did she know. 88 games later, yeah.
That's right. That's right.
I did. So how did she, how did she take
to it? So you sit her down and play a
game and was she, did she fall in love like you did or how did
that process take place? So.
I fell in love with with board games, right?
And and she fell asleep. That's that's a bit unfair.
I mean, she she does enjoy board games, but she certainly doesn't
enjoy anything that's too heavy. So you know.
OK. Like I, I love Robinson Crusoe,
Spirit Island, Mage Night, right?
I mean, I would never ever play those sorts of games with her.
It would need to be games that I can probably something like
pandemic level is something that she enjoys in terms of a mix of
skill and difficulty. So sort of gateway level games.
Of course, simpler games should she'd be happy to play.
With as well. So.
So that means that you had to go out and find other gamers in
Perth, right? Absolutely.
What I did was I spent so much time on Facebook Marketplace,
like hunting the best deals, you know?
Right. Yes.
So yeah, I, I started hooking up with people who happen to have,
you know, treasure troves or board games, and they just never
have the time to play them. And they're like, OK, you know
what? I bought this game.
I had to look at it. I'm selling it because a new
batch of Kickstarter games are coming, you know, right?
I'm like, OK, sure. Right.
So yeah. So what's the gaming community
like now? Is it?
I imagine it's more vibrant than what people would expect.
So I can speak for her since I was a bit active up until I
wasn't asked. But there are definitely a few
different, I guess major groups. There's the WABA, which is West
Australian Board Game Association.
That's probably the biggest one or most active that's well
known. There's one local 1 near mine
called Meeples Decks and Dice or MDD.
Shout out to them. And there are a few other ones
close by and local. They're, you know, small, but I
think they try and be active in terms of getting a group
together and just start playing. There are definitely a healthy
and very active community and certainly it's difficult in the
sense that, you know, we're far away from everyone, Australia
and then Perth specifically. But I think in that sense, Perth
has built its own resilience and saying, you know what, that's
OK. It's cool if we're not allowed
to join the cool kids, we'll just make our own group and our
own club. So I'm listening to and I'm
looking up a few stats about Perth, sure, because I I have to
admit I don't know a lot about Perth but I knew where it was
located and what not. It according it says it's got
2.3 million people. Yeah.
So it's it's a pretty substantial city.
So I imagine that just statistically there's a
substantial group of gamers. And how many board game cafes or
local board game stores exist in the area?
There are a few board game elements.
I'm not sure if cafe is the right word, but certainly I
guess retail shops that have just.
Spaces for people to. Play I'm not too sure about
cafes specifically, but there are at least let me see good
games Tannington over this area, good games.
Rockingham down South. There might be a few more up
north. So I'm sort of down South of the
river and there's further South. And then I guess further up
north is where there are a lot more communities probably, but
it's a bit too far for me to travel on a regular basis.
How often do you and your do your local game group you all
get together and game? So they get together around
twice a month, and when I was active, I did join that.
And then obviously once I started working on games, that
sort of tanked as I spent all my time just designing and
prototyping and play testing instead of actually, you know,
playing like a normal person. Sure.
How about gaming conventions? You know, like obviously here in
the United States we've got Origins and Dice Tower and Gen.
Con England has UKGE Essen in Germany.
Is there anything, is it maybe not comparable in size?
Obviously Essen Essen takes the cake, but so we have.
So last weekend, last weekend's a perfect example.
I was in Nashville, TN, it was a small gaming convention of about
700. There was another one going on
in Nebraska, right? That was about the same size.
There was another one up north of us in Milwaukee that was
about maybe 1000. Are there?
Are there little gaming gathering conventions like that
in your area? Definitely.
I mean, there's in Perth, there's probably Pixel X file I
want to say is probably the biggest one and that happens
once a year, sometime in October nationally in Australia.
There are a few more over E hax. Australia is probably the
biggest one, but there's also I got it right, can con and a
board game BBQ will set their own might be one or two more,
but yeah, it's sort of spread around the year.
And so we've got a few going on and they, from what I can see,
certainly make an effort to, you know, also highlight and feature
local designers as well. And it's not just about
convention for for gamers, but also to highlight, you know,
local talents as well. OK, cool.
So how often do you get out to Sydney?
Probably never. OK.
It's it's, yeah, it's, it's. It's definitely a bit of a, of a
distance and I only, I went to Melbourne for PAX Australia two
years ago and that was the only time that I, I did go there
effectively for a convention. So I haven't gone to any since.
And I think it's, it's always A, at least for someone in Perth,
it's always a question of, well, what's the trade off Like?
Are you just going there just to go for fun, right.
Which is cool. But if you're going there to
sell things and you know, you got to either way, you've got to
manage your finances and budget as well.
So yeah. Yep, yeah, we all have the same
concerns. Absolutely.
So you're working on, you said that you became a little bit
inactive, you started designing and play testing games.
So I know you've got a game coming out and but I don't know
if you have anything before that.
So talk to us more about what pulled you away from the gaming
community and into design. Sure.
So the biggest enjoyment as a designer, at least I can say
personally, this may not be represented by all game
designer, is the creative aspect of curating an idea or concept,
instilling it into an experience that, you know, have these
really great moments and you want someone else to discover
them, right. But to get to that point, it
really is, I guess, polishing a piece of marble with, I don't
know, the the most horrible piece of rag because it just
takes forever, right? Right.
Yes. Yeah, I spend easily like, you
know, 40 plus hours every week when I when I started like
working on just different designs.
And the first design that I did when I actually started, it was
for a BGG contest or game contest.
And I think it was for like a nine card game, right.
And this nine card game I spend I don't know what it was.
It was a lot of hours, like just for a nine card game and I
learned a lot from doing that. But yeah, just the whole
experience of trying to figure it out and at the same time, you
know, like, how do you, what materials, what tools do you
start using? Like I was trying to figure so
many things on top of learning about game design as well.
So that's why it was just so all consuming that I pretty much.
Didn't have time to do anything else.
So how many, how many games have you designed total?
Yeah. So in terms of prototyping, I I
prototyped 30 plus games in my first year and then.
First year. Wow.
OK. One of those, one of them was
selected for PAX Australia, which was Farmhouse Frenzy and I
went on to try and pitch that to several dozen publishers after
that. But then the year after, which
is last year, I came up, I think I worked on probably 15
different designs and a few of them I ended up, you know,
getting self published effectively.
One of them I have it here is actually tiny, tiny games with
the murmuring Mystic. So it's actually a small game.
Well, two games in one. There's actually a third game,
another booklet. I don't have it with me, but
they specialize these these guys Murmuring Mystic as an rank
brother and sister team. They specialize in basically
magazine sized games that you can just, you know, buy and then
play at home straight away. You might need a couple of dice,
maybe some pencils, but it's something really simple and easy
for you to do the games in here. Number one is dice and Stewart,
which is about creating a combo of, you know, points in cooking
your stuff but not overcooking it Nice.
And then silver beard successor is a game about trying to hide
your treasure in different spots, but also trying to guess
where other people are hiding their treasure and stealing
theirs. Right.
So that's and then there's another one, which is Blades of
Velcrest, which is a cooperative defend your town against
invaders and monsters. And I also have also had
anything you can do with Ryan Cross and that's a party game
where you're trying to do a little bit of light physical
challenges plus a bit of trivia within like a set time limit.
And that quantity in terms of the challenges increases with
each player. And so you know who will break
as it builds up kind of stuff. So I've worked on a few small
games and each one effectively became a bit of a bigger
project, right? And all of my projects are very
characteristic in the sense that almost all them that I try and I
have another designer that I work with and collaborate with,
I find that that helps to accelerate your learning and
also to challenge your own biases about what works well and
what doesn't, right? Yeah.
So, yeah, as a play tester, I can say that that's, yeah, that
resonates. Sometimes you hit resistance,
you get a designer who's so married to their game and
they're so married to their idea and they want a fresh
perspective. But when it's not what they want
to hear and it's not like we as play testers are trying to be
rude. We're just trying to help you
because we believe in the game. And then others take a fresh
perspective and they're like, tear it apart, you know?
So it's it's interesting, but you need it.
You absolutely need that collaboration.
I totally agree. That's that's incredible.
So after anything you can do came.
So that after I worked on that, I mean, I was, I was still
working on other designs in the side.
So that's when I started focusing on the solely, which
was the game that just got out a month ago basically.
Well, now it's April. So two months ago it was in
February, and it was. Lost and so for our listeners,
this is the game you've been waiting to hear about right,
right, right, right. This is this is the.
So here's interesting story because let's contextualize.
While our relationship is new sure how we met so my good
friend Laura who is at obsessed with board games on Instagram.
She got a review copy of your game or she I don't, she
introduced. Us.
Yes, yes. And and she's like, you guys
need to because she introduced me to Palgan in India.
That's how he came on the show. So, so Laura, thank you once
again. Thank you.
She's gonna be on the show next week, so we're gonna be talking
about community, so it's gonna be exciting.
But yeah, so that's how we met. And she was like, you're a
perfect fit. And I wanted to hear your story.
Right. I'm really interested in both
your story as a gamer, as a designer, and then I want to
hear about Usoli. Yes, right.
Yeah, yeah. So it's is it on Kickstarter or
has it, has it fulfilled or is where we at it's finished?
Only 95% fulfilled. There are just OK, four or five
people who seem to not want their game.
I've like emailed OK, I've messaged them and for whatever
reason they haven't gotten back to me.
So. If they don't want it, I'll take
it. There you go.
Just give me your address after this, right?
I'll just mark it as well. If you're listening to this and.
You're waiting for your copy. Please get back to me.
Get back to him right away. Otherwise, I'm going to get your
copy that's. It.
So tell us about Usoli. This game is this game is just,
I don't know that they're I think, I think theme wise
there's nothing like it on the market, not in the not in the
West, I don't think. And it just seems really
interesting and I want to, I'd like to hear more.
Yeah. So tell us about it.
I had the box here just now. I don't know if it showed up but
there it is. So Usoli is actually pretty
small. It is a small yeah a.
Lot smaller than a lot of people expect.
So they're like, oh, that's actually really small.
I thought in the picture maybe it's just a leaflet, you know,
not the actual game. But anyway, period.
Is that that's the gate so we'll.
So for those of you who are, yeah, for those of you who are
listening and not watching this because I've got a lot of
Spotify listeners, right. The gate, the box is rather
small, yes, but it's so it's it's like a it's the blue sky
and it's matted, but you've got a beautiful glossy finish.
Yes. Over.
What is that? Is that the that's the, is that
the image? It's, it's a yeah, it's a is it,
it's a generic. OK, yeah, yeah.
I thought it might have been the Haggia Sophia, right in Turkey,
but I wasn't sure. OK, So it's a mosque.
Yeah. All right.
It's beautiful. The artwork is amazing.
So. Yeah.
So that's what he's holding up. It's not a very big.
You could easily travel with this.
Yes. Yes, maybe not in your pocket.
Absolutely no, it won't fit in your pocket, but it will fit in
your backpack. When you're going to PAX
Australia, that's. It that's.
It that's a plug for PAX Australia.
If they like to host meatball to meatball and fly us down, we're
ready to go. For sure.
So the story with solely was that as I was developing lots of
different ideas and concepts and prototypes.
Obviously, creating something that has close association with
your personal values and identity is very powerful
because you can pull. Your personal.
Experiences. It's very authentic.
Yes. But with Islamic games.
OK. Just to give context for anyone
not aware. Solely has a religious theme.
It's about the five daily Islamic prayers or Salah, and
you're basically trying to do them throughout the day.
But The thing is that this game is not a religious game, which
means that you don't need to be Muslim.
You don't need to know anything about Islamic prayers in order
to play the game. Everything is revealed to you as
you read the rules and understand the terminology and
play the game. And I can watch that because I
have a lot of people who basically come from that.
You know, a lot of the especially reviewers who are
non-muslim, they just learn from the game and figure out how it
works. Like I didn't need to tell them
as they say, hey, look at look at this Wikipedia page or
whatever. So all The thing is there,
right? But when I was developing not
even a solid yet, but in my first year, I actually tried to
explore some Islamic concepts to try to get games.
And I had some reflection about, well, what, what is it about
Islamic games that you know, where, where are they in terms
of the landscape right now? And when I look back from my own
experiences, I know my parents did try to, you know, find
Islamic themed games as we're growing up.
But I knew personally that a lot of them weren't really fun.
And the reason is they tend to focus on trivia as a primary.
Mechanism. And so if you knew the answers
already, you're going to win the game.
And if you don't, well, you're going to not have a great time.
And there wasn't much more beyond that.
Sure, there's a an educational aspect, but you know, as a game,
it wasn't really, they weren't really games in that set.
So that's one of the things that for me, it was like, I wanted to
make a game that was a game first, right?
And the theme was. Something that.
Was baked in, so not the other way, not that oh, it's such a
great theme, but it's not an actual game that you can play,
right. So that was for me a really
important thing. The second thing was that with
religious topics, or I guess any topics that you know, there's
like the difference between fact and fiction is obvious.
Like you can't make things up, you have to follow.
Through things. Right there.
Is absolutely. Great difficulty in trying to
find theme and mechanisms that match and marry together.
Yep. So we.
We went through quite a lot of different sort of prototypes
and, and concepts and it was like, sometimes we'll find it
cool concept and then we couldn't find a good mechanic
for it. And sometimes it was the other
way around. I had a concept about trying to,
you know, create an Astrolay, for example, and it was giving
you directions and it was really cool as a mechanic, but it
didn't work quite well when you try to, you know, play it and
and so. After that's that's too bad
because that sounds really cool. Well, just you wait because
something might eventually surface, but I'm not going to
say anything yet further. OK.
After so many, you know, trial and error, I actually paused on
a solid for a while because we just couldn't find something
that worked. So at this point we actually
didn't have was solely as a game yet.
I guess in that sense, like we knew we wanted to have this
theme eventually, like after different prototypes, we were
like, OK, this is a theme that we want to focus on.
We just couldn't find a way to make it work that would make it
fun. And so I paused and then I said,
OK, that's cool. You know, it is what it is.
That's fine. Other things to work on and had
another game which is about the water crisis in sub-Saharan
Africa right and so you're trying to build wells in order
as a village folk effectively like as a community and trying
to build these wells to produce clean water access which then
demonstrates how that access will provide better future for
the next generation of that. I just as a side note, based on
what I mentioned earlier, you know, my considerations going
into this, I was very conscious to want to try to pursue games
and themes that focused on positive impact and a bit of
reflection on the player side. So it wasn't just like, you
know, like, OK, here's a fun game and that was it.
Like I want to try and see, OK, is there a sort of deeper layer
that I can engage players? So anyway, back to that water
game. The theme was cool.
The mechanic that I had in there eventually was OK, and I
actually thought, you know what, this might work better in a
solid. So I actually ported that system
from that game and then moved it to Solid.
And then when we played it, we were blown away because it
worked so well. It just made sense with the
theme in mind. And for those of you who know
the game very well known Splendor, right, that we had
some inspiration from that as well.
And you will probably notice that in this how there's, you
know, like a grid of cards and stuff like that.
But yeah, we, you know, worked on that.
And then that sort of set the ball rolling because once we
found that core mechanic that worked really well with theme,
then it was just focused on refining it, finding a suitable
artist to, you know, work on the art.
I knew personally that the art could not have a strong
religious representation in the sense of I guess someone like, I
guess it makes sense if I say like someone holding a cross,
right? Like that is a very strong kind
of representation, which may make some people like, I don't
want that sort of game, that sort of thing, right.
Like in here. I didn't.
You don't have any image of, you know, someone praying with
prayer beads or holding the Quran and that sort of stuff,
right? It's all very focused on
architectural art effect. So very neutral and approachable
art in that sense. OK.
And so it was really so many different, I guess, bits of
conscious decision around how this game should be made in
regards to the audience that would play it.
And Speaking of that, that's actually another interesting
challenge because I knew that I wanted to create a game that had
some depth, which means it needed some complexity, right?
Absolutely yes. And for the board game
community, this game is considered a light filler game
for them. It's like, you know what?
I can learn it in like 10 seconds and we'll.
Play right. But for the vast majority of the
Muslim community, they are not familiar with board games and
with modern board games, right? They're familiar with things
like, again, Monopoly, maybe Scrabble, right?
Like a really, really simple game, Uno.
And so for them, they expect, oh we will just learn the game in 2
minutes and we'll already know or like it needs to play like
Uno for us to play so. There was.
Definitely a bit of concern and sort of hesitation around that,
right? And at the same time, again,
because of the religious theme, there was also hesitation around
how would be accepted outside of the Western communities.
We're sort of like, are we really creating this game?
Like, is this going to be like a pariah where nobody actually
likes it that? Was So in Full disclosure, that
was my initial reaction. When Laura first told me about
the game, I was like, what? Yes, what?
And then and then I was like, tell me more.
Yeah. So how was Usoli received by the
Muslim community when you introduced it to them?
So you have to sort of split it into layers because again, we're
not a monolith, just like board gamers.
Are not a monolith, Absolutely. There there's that are good at
playing heavy games or not, but with the Muslim community, I
mean there, there's an intersection, particularly, I
guess I would say the younger generation, it could be 30 plus
could be younger as well, maybe young parents and they they are
aware and and they do enjoy playing modern board games,
right And so for them when they see this like they connect the
dots and they're like, OMG, that is amazing because it's
something that represents my identity positively, right,
especially in regards to the sort of global climate on
things, but also it's a fun game.
So it's. Like that's incredible.
That's. Right.
So for the Muslim community who are gamers, They they love it,
right? For the Muslim community who are
not gamers, there is a bit of a bridge to.
Crossover. Right, because you need to teach
them the game for them to understand it first.
But once they understand it, I mean, they're like blown away
because there is, I can safely say literally nothing else like
this like in terms of how this theme is implemented, right?
So so far very positive reception.
Any any pushback at all? Did you encounter any
resistance? I think the probably immediate
concern is that sure, how accurate is this from from
again, Muslim community and it's a natural thing to ask because
you're talking about one of the five core pillars of the
religion, right? And it's like.
Well, yeah, is. This are you doing justice or
did you decide to just like now I'm going to, you know, mash
things up and it's hey, if someone learns this, they're
just like, Nope, that's not the right way.
So that was a big initial concern for, you know, some
people when they saw the game. But also similar to that, there
are some Muslim countries who are more astringent in terms of
religious content like or Brunei, where you need to pass
your content through their, you know, religious department first
or you can do anything else legally.
And so I mean, those are just, you know, it is what it is.
It is what it is situation. It's not a problem, of course,
but yeah, that that's the sort of immediate concerns that come
up with regards to creating such a game like.
Is there a substantial or vibrant Islamic community in and
around the greater Perth area? There are, there's definitely, I
guess a big general community. What I would say is that they're
probably more active or focused sub communities depending on
where they're originally from, For example, Pakistani
community, Indian community or Malaysian or Singapore and all
that. I mean, obviously we have meets
and gatherings where we do connect with each other, but I
think there's a little bit of a comfort in a particular culture
that you've grown up in which you will generally associate
sure more with, which is, you know, just it's not limited to
religion, pretty much any anything else like nationality
and all that. You go like, hey, I'm going to
hang with people who grew up the same way I grew up, right?
That's sort. Of right.
So did you in terms of spreading the word for Usoli, was it just
in the local Muslim communities in around your area?
Did you manage to break out into predominantly Muslim countries?
If you did, how did you achieve that?
Sure. So with Usoli, when I knew it
was time to start marketing this, which was sometime in late
last year, right? Like I knew I was going to go
into full production and stuff like that, right?
I started basically just Googling up and searching up,
hey, other Muslim communities around board game design.
And this is one of the things that I was very active in when I
started in this industry, which is to actively connect with
designers, just designers, right?
I would be like, hey, are you OK if I just have a chat with you
and learn from you, your journey, your challenges and
stuff? So I was no stranger to just
reaching out and connecting with people across the globe.
And with the Solid, I started doing that for Islamic board
game design. The thing is, from my research,
no such community existed. So I was like, OK, well, if
they're not, I'll just create 1. And so I created an online
community, right? And then we slowly sort of grew
larger and organically, other designers, literally, I have
someone from Turkey, a few from the US, another guy here in
Australia, a few in Southeast Asia.
And so it was just slowly connecting them together and
just saying, hey, guys, you know, it is a solitary
experience in some design, but we should try and connect
because of the themes they're working on are similar in scope,
right? So I actually focused a lot on
international reach and in fact, locally, it's only now that I'm
starting to reach out to sort of local communities and events in
terms of, you know, Muslim communities and all that.
I think it was it was more the fact that I knew that this is
this product was a game 1st instead of a religious material
1st, that it was easier to connect with communities that
were game focused or understood the value of that game
component. You didn't have to sell.
In that sense. They were like, OK, we
understand. It's a really, really cool game
compared to right, It's a game. So what?
Sure. So I want to, I want to ask
about a little bit more about the game itself.
There is and, and to be fair, Laura prompted me on some of
these questions. Sure, sure.
Because because she has a copy of the game, apparently there's
a normal and an advanced mode in solely.
Yes. Tell me a little bit about that.
Why the two modes? How do they operate?
Yeah, yeah. So actually there are three
modes, right, There's basic advance and solo mode and solo
you can use either of the difficulty levels right And the
reason for that number one again, this is a game first like
I knew with modern board games, solo modes are really popular.
I'm a. Solo gamer.
I love playing solo games as well.
So for me, initially I thought, you know what, this game doesn't
need it, right? But then I thought, but, but
that actually strengthens the value proposition as a game if I
have that solo mode. But with the basic and advanced
mode, it was again recognition that some people who start
playing this game may not may have difficulty in trying to
absorb everything in one go. So it's better to shuffle the
strategic choices and the rules in terms of basic and advanced
mode. Again, not to say that the basic
is super easy for someone who's only familiar with Uno and all
that, but it does, you know, break it down a little bit to
make it a bit more graceful for your first time.
Instead of saying here are 100 different rules, it's more like
here are. 50 rules only, right? So it sounds like it initially
didn't have a solo mode. I feel like I was listening to
you talk about that for a minute and I was like, it seems natural
for a game that is about the daily prayers, which is a very
solitary event, right, spiritually for there to be a
solo mode in this game, right? I'm like, of course.
So I, I, I have to ask, how does it play at two players?
Have you and your wife sat down and played it?
How's that experience? And I ask because my wife and I
play a lot of games so we look at the two player aspect.
Yeah, so my wife is, you know, my number one play tester
whether she likes it or not. Right, for all of my products.
And all that. So we definitely played a lot of
this two players. The thing is with the sole, I
mean, it's interesting you highlighted about that solo
aspect like it. It seems obvious.
So with with the when we were designing this right, again, she
gave a lot of input and feedback, which is why I'm
saying we even though her name is not on there, but she should
be so. Well, you need to change that
soon. I need to change that.
That's right, that's right. Otherwise, I'm going to be the
doghouse. Right.
But we actually wanted to, or at least we tried to make a game
that was cooperated, present competitive, right?
So we were like, you know what, based on the theme, we wanted
something that would get people together and like, you know, get
them to have something that they can positively share and stuff
like that. What we found out was that a
cooperative game is slightly more complicated than a
competitive game because you have to add on those layers to
say, hey, be nice to each other, hey, here are some goals for you
to work together. But a competitive game is like
everybody understands that, like, I want to win, I'm going
to beat. You.
Yes, yes. So again, in terms of.
Making sure it was a game first, we decided, OK, it's going to,
you know, focus on the competitive aspect.
And so at two player count and at three player count, this is
where the game plays best at. Because.
Some of the feedback, especially from reviewers, is that the game
plays really, really quickly at the four player.
And the reason why is because the number of turns don't really
change regardless of the player count.
That means that a larger player counts.
And it's, it's a, it's a very simple reason.
I wanted to keep the game a certain duration and not to take
over than that, Right. And of course, for gamers,
they'd be like, no, we want it to be.
Perfectly balanced at different C levels.
But this is one of the things that as a designer, I, I had to
make that decision to say, well, what is more important as part
of the package, you know, in order to respect the theme and
the intended audience and, and stuff like.
That right, Yeah. OK.
So it plays better at 3:00. 2 Two or three players is
basically the. Two or three and at four
players, it's too fast. That's interesting.
Typically games tend to be the more players, the longer the
game takes. Yeah.
Even a quick game. That's That is fascinating.
That is fascinating. Wow.
I can't wait. I want to.
I want to play. I want to play.
This is exciting. Nice.
So are there any future plans for larger gaming conventions or
opportunities in WA that are in the works now that you know
about? You mean events being planned
and all or? Yeah, just you know, anything
talk because you mentioned is it Wagga Wagga, Waba, right, Waba,
Waba. I'm sorry, Waba.
I just didn't know if if the community, if the amount of
gamers in WA were growing and that there was a possibility for
larger conventions coming to Perth say so that you knew
about. Well, I mean, but it's simply.
As far as I know, there are none.
And here's something. Really.
Interesting. There are a government funding
in the gaming industry here, but it is exclusively for video
games. They make it very clear that it
cannot be a board game. It cannot be a hybrid video
slash board game. It has to be board game home.
So. Wow.
So that's number one. And then even in terms of sort
of the arts funding, like I've tried to sort of, you know,
reach out about that. They're also like, this is not
art, you know, like in. Their definition.
Of art, sure. So, so there there is some
limitation in terms of funding. So as and until there is
acceptance of what board game means for those.
People right? I think it will still be a bit
limited in terms of the access here.
I think over E there are a lot more initiatives just because of
the large population of gamers and all that.
And therefore access to funds is going to be easier and the
audiences are there and stuff like that.
But I can certainly say that in Perth, in WA, it is growing even
for the designers in WA, Like we keep finding new ones because I
organize the monthly meet up sessions here and we're always
like every now and then, hey, somebody new pops up and like
they're like, I've been doing this for five.
Years just in my. Where have you been?
Yeah, exactly. So.
So we're there, you know. We're in the dozens.
Right, the dozens. You are the dozens.
I love that. So do you have I?
I probably already know the answer to this question, but I'm
going to ask it anyway. Do you have any, any plans,
tangible plans, not just dreams of coming to either the UK or
the United States, to some of these larger conventions to
introduce yourself, introduce Usoli to the gaming community,
everything like that. I definitely want to do that.
I don't know when that's a really good question.
And again, finances being one, sure, but I think it's also
trying to figure out ways of reaching people across the globe
without necessarily being there physically as a, you know, case
in point, solely actually got picked up by PAX East, right,
which is in America. Yes, yes, it is so.
They have, I believe a first look section so.
Oh good. Then to of space fame did a
review of the game, right? And then someone from there saw
it, and then they're like, hey, this is really cool in terms of
how engaged the theme seems to be and all that.
Like, we want to feature it, right?
And so Sully is travelling to the US.
But not. Because it is so small, right?
But normally, yeah, not this time really.
I do hope to to make it one day because it is so fascinating to
see just the sheer size and scope of that.
I was actually in Germany a few months back at the Nuremberg Toy
Fair. So that's probably the.
Closest, OK, sure. But still, that's a significant
event. Yeah, it was OK.
I was trying to basically connect with potential retailers
and just, you know, potential partners to work with in Europe.
Again, this was a time where actually the game still wasn't,
you know, quite out. It wasn't out yet.
So I was still sort of, it wasn't a weird kind of situation
to be in this like this game hasn't come up, but hey, I'm
still here. To connect.
With people about it, especially as an unknown designer and stuff
like that. But yeah, look, I'm no stranger
to reaching out and connecting with people, so I hope to be
able to do that one day with the American war gaming community.
I think there's some exciting sort of things that I couldn't.
I can learn and explore and just connect and and and see how he's
in there work and hopefully bring some of that gear to Earth
Australia as well. So you definitely, if you
haven't already done this, you should probably reach out to
Pagan and Mosaic games and you know, in India because he's
coming to Gen. Con this year.
So he can at least help you figure out the finances of how
to get right. Like, so I can't even imagine.
My international travel has only ever been to England, so I can't
even imagine flying around the world.
Like that's incredible. That's the dream, right?
I mean, that's a tagline for our whole podcast as we're trying to
unite players around the world. So that's it.
It's it's surprising how quickly I've gotten used to the time
zone. Different differentiate.
Like that's a conversation I have with everybody.
So where are you? Yeah, you're, you know, you're
this many hours this way or that way, right.
Whatever. So that's that's that's
incredible. Yeah.
Thank. Thank you.
Thank you for coming on. This was great.
I really, this was amazing. I look forward to more chats
with you as our relationship continues.
I can't wait to play you solely, that's just exciting.
Where can people find you on social media if they have
questions for you or they miss the campaign and they want to
get a copy after listening to this?
Sure, you can find me almost anywhere online these days.
Facebook. Not Twitter.
But you can find me not Twitter, because Twitter does not exist
at this point. But.
That's correct. A board game geek I'm I'm also
on there. If you search up with solely on
Board Game Geek and 1st something there, I'll be sure to
find it on Instagram as well. I think those are pretty much
the main ones that I have the time and entry to.
To question. But yeah.
Absolutely. Look up with Sully wherever you
find it just and you see my name, then you can just, you
know, send me a message. I'd be very happy tonight and on
LinkedIn. I'm also on there today.
OK. And that's that is Usoli is
USOLLI correct yes. So dude, y'all gotta go look
this up. This game is this game and now
that I've seen the box like see how small it is I mean at least
I can go. I can go an hour S to Saint
Louis hang out with Laura. She could teach me the game, so
I'll probably pressure her next week.
Nice for that nice Ahmad. Thank you.
Thank you so much, so much sincerely, guys, don't forget to
like and smash that subscribe button.
Leave comments below for Amen myself, Spotify, YouTube guys,
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So thanks and keep keep tuning in and I'm on.
Thanks again. Cool.
Thank you. Have a good day man.
See ya. All right.